Avarice Quotes

• Of all the systems of religion that ever were invented, there is no more derogatory to the Almighty, more unedifying to man, more repugnant to reason, and more contradictory to itself than this thing called Christianity. Too absurd for belief, too impossible to convince, and too inconsistent for practice, it renders the heart torpid or produces only atheists or fanatics. As an engine of power, it serves the purpose of despotism, and as a means of wealth, the avarice of priests, but so far as respects the good of man in general it leads to nothing here or hereafter.

  Thomas Paine

  Atheist, Heart, Mean

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• The Devil endeavours by every means to keep men in error, in the enticement of the passions, in darkness of mind and heart; in pride, avarice, covetousness, envy, hatred, wicked impatience and irritation; in evil despondence, in the abominations of fornication, adultery, theft, false-witness, blasphemy, negligence, slothfulness, and sluggishness.

  John of Kronstadt

  Passion, Heart, Mean

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• He who is always in a hurry to be wealthy and immersed in the study of augmenting his fortune has lost the arms of reason and deserted the post of virtue.

  Horace

  Arms, Study, Virtue

  Horace (1770). “The Works of Horace, ...: In Two Volumes”, p.233

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• Avarice begets more vices than Priam did children and like Priam survives them all. It starves its keeper to surfeit those who wish him dead, and makes him submit to more mortifications to lose heaven than the martyr undergoes to gain it.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Children, Heaven, Wish

  Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.29

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  Greed is a bottomless pit which exhausts the person in an endless effort to satisfy the need without ever reaching satisfaction.

  Erich Fromm

  Effort, Greed, Needs

  Erich Fromm (2013). “Escape from Freedom”, p.121, Open Road Media

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• It is a bitter thought to an avaricious spirit that by and by all these accumulations must be left behind. We can only carry away from this world the flavor of our good or evil deeds.

  Henry Ward Beecher

  Evil, Flavor, World

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• When money is unreasonably coveted, it is a disease of the mind which is called avarice.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Mind, Disease

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• Greed's worst point is its ingratitude.

  Seneca the Younger

  Greed, Worst, Ingratitude

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• It is by bribing, not so often by being bribed, that wicked politicians bring ruin on mankind. Avarice is a rival to the pursuits of many.

  Edmund Burke

  Wicked, Rivals, Ruins

  Edmund Burke (1804). “Maxims and opinions, moral, political and economical, with characters, from the works of ... Edmund Burke”, p.15

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• Poverty wants some things, Luxury many things, Avarice all things

  Benjamin Franklin

  Luxury, Avarice Greed, Want

  Benjamin Franklin (2012). “Wit and Wisdom from Poor Richard's Almanack”, p.17, Courier Corporation

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• Avarice starves its possessor to fatten those who come after, and who are eagerly awaiting the demise of the accumulator.

  Sir Fulke Greville

  Demise

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• Avarice has ruined more souls than extravagance.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Greed, Soul, Extravagance

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• The avarice person is ever in want; let your desired aim have a fixed limit.

  Horace

  Wall, Greed, Want

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• For at least another hundred years we must pretend to ourselves and to every one that fair is foul and foul is fair; for foul is useful and fair is not. Avarice and usury and precaution must be our gods for a little longer still.

  John Maynard Keynes

  Years, Liberty, Littles

  John Maynard Keynes (1932). “Essays in persuasion”

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• Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's needs, but not every man's greed.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Inspirational, Spiritual, Nature

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• Avarice is generally the last passion of those lives of which the first part has been squandered in pleasure, and the second devoted to ambition. He that sinks under the fatigue of getting wealth, lulls his age with the milder business of saving it

  Samuel Johnson

  Wall, Passion, Ambition

  Samuel Johnson, Elizabeth Carter, Samuel Richardson, Catherine Talbot (1825). “The Rambler: A Periodical Paper, Published in 1750, 1751, 1752”, p.262

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• Lust is to the other passions what the nervous fluid is to life; it supports them all, lends strength to them all ambition, cruelty, avarice, revenge, are all founded on lust.

  Marquis de Sade

  Revenge, Passion, Ambition

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• Five enemies of peace inhabit with us - avarice, ambition, envy, anger, and pride; if these were to be banished, we should infallibly enjoy perpetual peace.

  Petrarch

  Forgiveness, Peace, Anger

  "De vita solitaria". Book by Francesco Petrarca, 1346.

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• So for a good old-gentlemanly vice, I think I must take up with avarice.

  Lord Byron

  Thinking, Greed, Vices

  'Don Juan' (1819-24) canto 1, st. 216

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• The character of covetousness, is what a man generally acquires more through some niggardliness or ill grace in little and inconsiderable things, than in expenses of any consequence.

  Alexander Pope

  Character, Men, Grace

  Alexander Pope, William Roscoe (1824). “The Works of Alexander Pope: Esq. with Notes and Illustrations by Himself and Others. To which are Added, a New Life of the Author, an Estimate of His Poetical Character and Writings, and Occasional Remarks”, p.318

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• Where today are the Pequot? Where are the Narragansett, the Mohican, the Pcanet, and other powerful tribes of our people? They have vanished before the avarice and oppression of the white man, as snow before the summer sun.

  Tecumseh

  Summer, Powerful, Native American

  Quoted in Dee Brown, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (1970)

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• A poor spirit is poorer than a poor purse. A very few pounds a year would ease a man of the scandal of avarice.

  Jonathan Swift

  Men, Years, Ease

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• It would not be more unreasonable to transplant a favorite flower out of black earth into gold dust than it is for a person to let money-getting harden his heart into contempt, or into impatience, of the little attentions, the merriments and the caresses of domestic life.

  William Mountford

  Flower, Heart, Dust

  William Mountford, Frederic Dan Huntington (1850). “Martyria: A Legend, Wherein are Contained Homilies, Conversations, and Incidents of the Reign of Edward the Sixth”, p.251

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• It is not the nature of avarice to be satisfied with anything but money. Every passion that acts upon mankind has a peculiar mode of operation. Many of them are temporary and fluctuating; they admit of cessation and variety. But avarice is a fixed, uniform passion.

  Thomas Paine

  Passion, Peculiar, Uniforms

  Thomas Paine (2015). “Common Sense, The Crisis, & Other Writings from the American Revolution: (Library of America Paperback Classic)”, p.333, Library of America

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• There are two considerations which always imbitter the heart of an avaricious man--the one is a perpetual thirst after more riches, the other the prospect of leaving what he has already acquired.

  Henry Fielding

  Heart, Men, Two

  Henry Fielding (1783). “The Beauties of Fielding. Carefully Selected ... To which is Added Some Account of His Life”, p.2

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